The math for blood hunting basically goes to you want to use Akerbeltz until you have dowsing rods, then you want to use Sorgina. THe sweet spot is at level 3 now.

@bread1958

5 ай бұрын

The sweet spot was always 3

@Manticoran66

5 ай бұрын

Can I ask why growth3 when blood fecundity is growth+2? You only need 4 for terraforming anywhere as long as you also have Order 1.

@Manticoran66

5 ай бұрын

@@bread1958 Sure but like, it's even harder towards 3. Used to be you had a 90% chacne of success with B2, and now you only have a 70% and need B3 to get a guaranteed search. Previously depending on cost B2 could easily be better than B3 for searching as far as overall efficiency goes.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

I didn't test super thoroughly, and would need Loggy to review the code to be specific, but Growth 5 felt like it changed things into forests a lot faster and more consistently. Also some of the nations I listed really want forests. Farmlands are nice and all, but not always the goal. With G4 if a province turns into a farmland it will stay that way and never become a forest. At least that's what the documentation and 50+ turns of end turn look like. G4+Order also looks to make farmlands more than forests (although it can still make forests)

I think Ritual of the Five Gates is an important mid-game spell for this nation. Your B4 Akerbeltz can cast it easily and it solves one of the biggest problems with Blood as army sizes have increased: mage turn efficiency. For one mage turn you get: a normal price Demon Knight and Storm Demon, plus for just 8 slaves you get a Frost Fiend, Devil, and Fiend of Darkness thrown in. So you save 7 blood slaves and 4 mage turns over summoning them individually. Yes, it means you get fewer of the "best" demons per blood slave, but the others are still very usable. I think the total package is a pretty sweet deal. Also I'd add that I think research boosters are going to be important for this nation. Between blood hunting/summoning taking mage turns, not having a research monkey, wanting to go Construction anyway, and having F/A paths, I think research boosters are going to be your best way to keep up.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

Gosh you're right I keep forgetting how good that spell is right now. 100% ritual of the 5 gates is VERY strong in dom6.

I think a guide about how to actually blood hunt would be very helpful. When to start, wich unit, what should you do with your first blood slaves (wich you cover a bit already in this video), Same thing about how use sabbat M/S. Also you said to look for lizard shamans or jade amazons but how am I supposed to know? is there a way to see in advance wich regions have these? Also, Can't wait for the LA mictlan next!

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

I can definitely do a mini bloodhunt guide, added to the list! Great idea! I know A LOT of veteran players will disagree with my methods here...but thats okay. These videos are mostly aimed to get people started and exploring their own ideas / preferences anyways. Lizard Shamans / Jade Amazons tend to be found in swamps, more frequently in the earlier ages. The only way to know if they are there is to have a scout nearby, or conquer the neighboring provinces. I should have mentioned why they are important too in the video. Lizard Shamans provide astral-nature magic, jade amazons provide nature-water. Traditionally the short of it is jade amazons provide access to the moss body spell, which has been made weaker in dominions 6 but is still strong, and good path diversity. Lizard Shamans also provide access to astral AND nature which most nations lack. But in this case, Pyrene desperately needs astral mages. LA Mictlan and Nazca are on the list, but a little on the back burner for now. They are some of the more complex nations in Dominions and I don't have the bandwidth to give them the attention they deserve. My off-time is spent wedding venue hunting, studying for a new tech job, interviewing, and working out right now. Once I get the wedding and the new job done I should have more time to tackle some of these complex nations. I don't want to get things wrong with them :P I think the Mictlan's will all come out at once too, I find EA/LA to be very similar and have a lot of personal experience with MA.

My favorite new nation in Dom 6 hands down! Although my idea for playing them was a bit different. I took a blood fountain (could be there is a better chassis for that) with a bunch of blood magic and 4 death, dormant with bless being just pure raw strenght. What this does for you of coure is vampires. That breaks you into high death too (its good to scrounge enough death gems early for a reverent and a skull staff too, that you can search / dark knowledge). Those you can use for frontline in the end game armies (as skele spam with blood vortex and vine ogre bodygards, reverse sabbath you name it) and anything else a vampire lord can do, like darkness and rigor mortis in every battle, since you have dark vison and relif will be trivial. Add to that a battery lf storm demons, papa illearth, ez heliophagai to break you into other paths too. Now you might say that greedy, and i guess it kinda is, but you can get decent scales like that, get a lot of crossbows, sturdy infantry and muflon knights that will knock the shit out of anything particularly tough. Plus other emergency buttons can be swarm spam, elementals, imps etc etc there is options to defend oneself. And late game 8 vamps, 8 soringya and a goat are a freaking scary stack

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

Honestly not even a bad idea! Vampires were really strong in dominions 5! How do you feel about them in 6? I think they require more research / slaves to get right? Don't worry about greed either. Toward the end of dominions 5 I was starting to lean into the idea of just going full greed every game. After all, only two scenarios come from that right? Either your greed goes unpunished and silly things begin, or it gets punished and you try again in another game...

@dogebestest7187

4 ай бұрын

I figure vamps are still vamps, they still provide similar capabilities while being quite expendable. Need to anchor an army they can spam skeles or Sabbath slave and tank , can raid but raiding seems harder in dom6, can hunt, are chunky and hard to get rid off. There are of course counters to everything, but I wanted something to hold the line for wrathful skies to do it's job and figured they would fit perfectly. Plus big death magic is just sooo good on any nation.

The power of Mistform and Body Ethereal point buffing makes Innate magic weapons and Evocation mages potentially important to have online early. E.g. MA Caelum, with an imprisoned build, can back up bird raiding on turn 12 with a dozen Mammoths buffed with Mistform, and if you're not ready for that, you could lose an army without killing any of them.

@-Kidzin

5 ай бұрын

It already was the case for dom5 but 5 bless points + incarnate on magic weapons makes it insanely painful to take.

@DemonsthenesDominions

5 ай бұрын

@@-Kidzinyeah but it used to be just the Astral nations; now it's the air ones too, and beware anyone whose got both and high quality troops!

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

I'm trying Vanarus right now for shits in SP. Can confirm that mistform+lucky chud hirdsmen are scary as hell and punch WAY above their weight.

@-Kidzin

5 ай бұрын

@@DemonsthenesDominions any spell damage pops mistform so with smart mage support you can deal with it

Pyrene simultaneously feels very fresh but also very familiar. I think they're going to be a nation that we start to see a lot in games once people start playing around with them. I've been messing around a bit and while I'm still working on it, Emerald Knights seem SUPER strong with a bless like Fire Shield.

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

I love me my fire shield blesses! Its very strong. I think the nation is a lot stronger than its given credit for, but since games take so long it likely will be a bit before people realize it. They should be getting to that stage about now give or take for most games...

@Chamomileable

4 ай бұрын

A man of culture. Honestly I'm still trying to figure out a good pretender design for them but I think that if built as a blood-oriented multipath midgame SC nation these guys could be MONSTERS. Right now I'm kind of spending all my time in Dom6 with this Myrmecoleon bless build that I've been working on for Ind but I really wanna dig into Pyrene more.@@ZanGames

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

Once you do, let me know how it goes!

very cool video mr zan

Nice! Really interested in this nation, and the weird Black Philip goats are great flavor.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

Giving supply makes them often better than horses!

I find even with a single low bless like blood surge the emerald knights hold up the early game, while you spam out sorginas for research. I prefer to hire the bishops to lead them rather than the Emerald counts because they can pivot to being useful at any stage of the game, and holy 2 makes blessing the 10 or so emerald knights they lead easier. The bishops have map move 16 (the same as the knights) holy man doesn't skip leg day. To save money for more labs and casters I use indy commanders leading cross breeds for unrest control during blood hunting. The main threat to the knights are giants of any sort, so get those evocations ready if a giant nation attacks you.

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

The high prot on knights / mouflons is super key for them! Blood surge will definitely beat up indies, I don't know if it would be enough for player sacreds though is my concern. Haven't given them a shot in MP yet. Hadn't considered crossbreeds to hunting, figured birds would be better. How is crossbreeding now in dom6?

FrenZyy here, the blood pans are not cap only. They can be recruited in any forest with a lab

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

Yep! They are the reason made the other video on terraforming. Moves them into broken

"Precision can matter" you are such a joker Zan

Nice, I was waiting for a video on these guys. It's pronounced peer-en-knee, like the pyrenees mountains in the real world, by the way.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

We need an official statement at this point. I think Lucid has Pie-reen on lockdown. I think its the py-rehn... Peer-en-knee sounds like so much, but probably the correct one. Dang English.

@cgman1940

5 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames That would clear things up. My logic is that Pyrene is based on Basque mythology and they live on and around the pyrenees mountains, so that is probably the inspiration for the name.

Just did some singleplayer with a super dumb imprisoned rainbow with decent scales. But the bless in total was heroism 3 strength +9 and blood surge. Might not be so good in multiplayer but I'd love to see the ai using something like this because those knights really do carry fights on their own and painting them with more strength buffs and prot buffs make them tear things apart.

@ZanGames

2 ай бұрын

I personally don't like heroism, but I guarantee you strength + 9 AND blood surge would tear shit up versus players. The units would be able to be countered with magic or what have you, but hitting that hard while riding an angry goat in full plate is always threatening!

@TTHJJD100

2 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames Oh yeah, I still put a lot of personal value into heroism because it causes faster level Gain. But realistically it's only for for trying to fill up hall of fame before other people

@ZanGames

2 ай бұрын

@@TTHJJD100 that is a legitimate reason depending on the nation. Stacking ALL the heroic traits on some good thugs can be neat

Kinda new to Dom 6 but I've played since 4, for my bless I went with berserk, regeneration and blood bond with Pyrene. The goat knights effectively get wounded and they stay and fight until the end of battle, sharing all their damage with one another. They're incredibly tanky once they get stuck in, ofc my scales are poor to reflect that though

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

The riders themselves shouldn't berserk with that bless, but the goats will! Weird interaction I think... That's definitely a strong combination of bless effects though! Blood bond might be very interact very interestingly with mounts actually. Good idea!

Part of the lack of discussion around magic weapons I think has been the increasing prevalence of civs to have some sort of recruitable magic weapon equipped unit. There's not as much reason to really break the bank getting magic weapons as a bless or needing the enchantment when your sacred may just get magic weapons anyway.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

S5 + incarnate is a massive nerf. Definitely needed though I think. Maybe. We're all waiting to see what lategame high level dominions looks like...

@DarkSideCookies

4 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames It might help some other summons see more play like Ether Warriors, but it would help a lot if they didn't cost nearly as much as Wish for the mass cast.

Also, at 2:23 how do you display this "non national summon" pannel? I have the Nation overview mod but it only shows national summons (the Aatxe bull for Pyrene)

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

Hi, I actually ended up making it myself using the Nation Overview mod as a template. I have a hard time editing videos and I would have had to do some of that to flash those monsters on screen while I talked about them. I'm much better at writing/coding/modding so I figured I could make something like that panel to help my guides flow better. I hope you liked it!

Good video. It's disappointing that Blood did not get more combat spells in Dom 6, especially crosspaths. I end up just using blood to make LLPs until Blood 6+

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

Thank you! I feel like blood could use more crosspath combat spells to really make some of the nations that have access to it unique.

I played a bit of doms 5 but never touched any blood nation, do you think this is a good introduction into blood nations? I was planning on learning abysia but I might as well try out this.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

Yes, actually. Because the nation has fallback access to Air / Nature / Earth which are all VERY strong paths and very strong early/midgame roster. Super quick blood eco guide: Find province with more than 7500 population Cast 1x call of the winds for upkeep-free patrollers Place 2 sorgina or akerbeltz in the province and set to blood hunt(with a sanguine dowsing rod from const5 when you can) Either place a lab in that province, or have TWO scouts. One to always be moving blood slaves to the lab, one to be moving back toward it. Add more patrollers/hunters as necessary. I think 6 hunters per province is good? Maybe. That'll give you a trickle of slaves to use for things. Combat magic is tough due to the logistics, but very strong. The easiest way to use it in this nation is set Sorgina to Monthly summon storm demons, and Akerbeltz to either monthly summon demon knights OR ritual of the 5 gates (credit to @lambdalandis). There are a ton of ways to be more efficient / use blood, but for a first time I think the above will give you good value! Don't forget that demons need undead leadership to move about!

YEAH FINALLY i'm so glad you decided to teach me how stop beeing bullied by medium AI

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

Shoot, I still get bullied by medium AI

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

I feel like the stuff that works vs players(what these videos are based on) doesn't always translate to the AI. AI is likely all about cheese. Maybe.

This nation probably takes Ind's crown as the deepest blood nation of MA. So I would certainly plan to fight a 2-3v1 by turn 18 when playing this nation; few nations will be happy to let a nation with as fast blood scaling as this one get going, and there's not a lot of other blood nations to share that property with in MA.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

I think so. Its why I was leaning toward "you need protection early." Because I feel like in a "high skill" game they would pretty much play like Mictlan with all neighbors attacking them ASAP.

I feel conflicted about this nation, its basically just another pangaea but this time with some air magic... Sacred cavalry instead of centaurs and a bit more variety in their troops and better mages but it feels a little un-original. Not that Pangaea is original... especially with water-pan... Oceania in the game too

@Manticoran66

5 ай бұрын

I feel like they're kinda substantially different in play style, personally. Your mage core plays much more of a supportive role rather than often Pangaea using theirs for thugging as much as not, the lack of Dryads/assassins and the lack of sacred mages makes your bless goals often pretty different, etc.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

Have you ever wanted to play LA Marignon, with MA Marignon's roster, but also Pangaea? Well boy do we have a nation for you!